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Habermas’ Consensus Theory of Truth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2023

Mary Hesse
Mary Hesse*
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
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Extract

The question of truth is central to current discussions in both of the major contemporary styles of philosophizing. In the Anglo-American linguistic and empiricist tradition there is a lively response (some might say backlash) to apparent difficulties caused by recent recognition of theory change and meaning variance in science. And within the Continental hermeneutio tradition there is raised the central question of the truth status of interpretations in the cultural sciences where these appear not to be subject to the criteria of empirical science. Let me say straight away that I believe that the almost universal dependence on versions of the correspondence theory of truth among analytical philosophers will prove seriously inadequate to both forms of the epistemological problem, and that we have to face here a deep challenge to many entrenched assumptions of empiricism — assumptions that are too infrequently brought to the light of day in these discussions.2

Type
Part X. Habermas
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1978 , Issue 2: Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers 1978 , 1978 , pp. 372 - 396
Copyright
Copyright © 1981 Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

1

In the preparation of this paper I have been greatly helped by correspondence with Thomas McCarthy, and by his kindness in sending me the advance typescript of his book {38}. Errors of interpretation that remain are entirely my own.

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